The Drummer; 战·鼓

Earlier this month, Jaycee Chan, actor and son of the much more famous Jackie, pleaded guilty in a Beijing court to drug offense and was sentenced to six months of jail time.
Young Jaycee has always been unconventional. Born and raised in the U.S., unlike most Asian Americans, he dropped out of college (College of William and Mary to be exact. Reason for leaving? Supposedly "all you can see in Virginia is sheep".). Then in 2009, he gave up his American citizenship to become a Chinese citizen. 
Sid, Jaycee's character, is the recalcitrant loser son of a Hong Kong mob boss Kwan (played by one of bigger China region's best actors of all time: 梁家輝, Tony Leung Ki-Fai. It's a pity that most American audience might've only known him from the early 90s French film "The Lover"). 
Sid was in an affair with his father's competing mob boss's mistress Carmen. The affair was discovered and the boss demands Kwan cut off Sid's two hands to settle the whole mess. Kwan sends Sid, along with him his most trusted bodyguard, to a mountainous region in Taiwan to hide out. 
While there, Sid unexpectedly ran into a traditional Zen Drumming Troupe, concept of which was based on a real group of self-subsisting hippie-like artists rigorously train daily in the art of Zen warrior drumming and perform worldwide. Sid is quite intrigued by the troupe's athletic practices and holistic discipline and quickly joins them. To the troupe-master's surprise, Sid proves himself more than just a spoiled delinquent and starts to enjoy his new-found simple life.
However, the mess he left behind didn't forget him. In the end he finds out that the bodyguard with whom he has bonded was the main engineer scheming to overthrow his father's mob business. 
Also worth mentioning is the brief but memorable appearance by Josie Ho (何超仪) as Sid's stubborn older sister determined to stay away from her mafia father and make it as a veterinarian. True to her on-screen black sheep persona, Josie's passion for acting and singing met the cold shoulders of his father Stanley Ho, the gaming king of Macau.


With Chinese subtitles with some of the dialogues in Cantonese. Enjoy the movie.

After the Final Battle; 决战之后

For advanced learners only.

If you happen to be a contemporary Chinese history bug, you have to watch this movie.

Although to American audience, the most seen Chinese movie genre is without a doubt action/Kung Fu, to mainland Chinese audience, however, it is definitely history/war movies.

This movie documents the lives of a group of highly ranked and decorated Nationalist generals and military officers from the time they were captured by the communists towards the end of the Chinese civil war, up to the point when they received amnesty.

Adapted almost verbatim from writer Huang Jiren (黄济人)'s investigative journalistic masterpiece 将军决战岂止在战场 (loosely translated "To Generals, winnings aren't only determined on the battlefields"). First published more than 30 years ago to critical acclaim, Huang followed up with a much belated part II in 2013, bringing another round of attention. The movie, however, was adapted solely based on part I and was released in the 1980s. 

The final "battle" in contemporary Chinese history generally refers to the conclusion of the three decisive battles of the Chinese civil war (1945-1949) that ended with Mao's communist party/army reigning over mainland and Jiang's nationalist party/army retreating to the island of Taiwan. The three battles are: Huaihai (淮海战役 or Xubang-徐蚌会战 in nationalist history) , Pingjin (平津战役, or 平津会战 in Taiwan), Liaoshen (辽沈战役, 辽西会战 or 辽沈会战 in Taiwan). As you can tell, the two sides never even agreed on the official names of the battles.
Huang's own maternal uncle was among one of those imprisoned generals. Far more than being a subject matter, his connection to all the other high-profile POWs and many more of his previous fellow cadets from the Whampoa Military Academy (黄埔军校, essentially China's West Point and the breeding ground for many top military leaders and strategists for both the Nationalists and the Communists) and the Nationalist colleagues made it possible for Huang to extensively interview the POW generals. They were critical in completing the missing pieces of the historical puzzles, providing alternative interpretation for the same events, what went wrong in intelligence and counter-intelligence. 

Contrary to common beliefs, both sides engaged in significant revisionism although recent decade or so have witnessed much improved communication, collaboration and compromise. What's amazing about this movie is that it was made in the 80s, way before open discussions about what version of history really happened became the norm. Losers not vilified and victors not lionized. Here is to the beginning of objective history.

I can't find a version with full Chinese subtitles. Deepest apologies. However, here's some small consolation: like most Chinese history/war movies, all of the characters, their positions, associated significance and events are spelled out telegram style. 

Enjoy the movie

Monga; 艋舺

Gangster themes are contemporary Hong Kong and 1920-1940 era Shanghai period drama perennials. Every few years a new one emerges. Monga, however, is a Taiwanese endeavor and it is quite brilliant and so watchable.
"Monga" is a Taiwanese aboriginal pronunciation.  It loosely means a place where small boats gather and used to be the name of an old town district in Taipei. Adjacent to 西门町, a tourism hot spot today. This cluster is where the 1970-1980ish early commercial development began.
For this type of movie you can almost imagine the mosaic of colorful characters and how they lived lives blurring the thin line between right and wrong. However, this movie is directed by Niu Chenze (钮承泽), the child actor-turned director whose acting we have seen in this blog: Growing Up. Allegedly he has himself lived a quasi-gangster life at one point in his youth. Seemingly volatile and jumpy (having even earned a well-deserved honorific Bean/Beanie), Niu is by all means a passionate director excels at using modern cinematic phrasing and maneuvering ensemble casts. In recent years nobody seems to have surpassed his attempt in telling the contemporary urban tales.
He might just become the Scorsese of Taiwan.
The movie is a true homage to youth, adventure, ambition and loyalty. I really liked all of the characters, from the formidable mafia boss who dons a shower cap to cook to your average blessed-by-ignorance ruffians.
Featuring some of the the most promising Taiwanese actors today: Ruan Jintian, 阮经天 (middle) as Dragon, the scarily disciplined number two and the real Meyer Lansky of the group; Zhao Youting 赵又廷 (second from right) as Mosquito, the fatherless new kid who valiantly and comically fought school bullies over a piece of chicken leg in the movie's much-acclaimed long opening scene;  Huang Denghui, 黄镫辉 (first from left) as the rash chubby guy of the group and Chen Handian, 陈汉典 (not pictured here) as the opposing gang's miserable gadfly who got his orifices glue-shut, literally. Huang and Chen are also very cool improv actors all over Taiwanese TV shows.
The only part I found less satisfying was the theatrically far-fetched subplot in which a frequent patron of Mosquito's mom's hair salon, another gangster figure and played by the director himself, turned out to be Mosquito's long-lost father.

Chinese subtitles; Enjoy the movie

A Chinese Ghost Story; 倩女幽魂

If you have a morbid fear towards ghost stories like I do, let me assure you that A Chinese Ghost Story will make you laugh! Few movies are the perfect blend of comedy, romance, action, period drama, and yes, ghosts.
A branch of the Chinese culture has always been dominated by ghosts, reincarnation, Yin-Yang divide and the after-world as they are important themes in both Buddhism and Taoism. Ghost stories as a movie genre have flourished as well.
The story was adapted from a short story out of a collection of 491, all ghost-themed, called 聊斋志异. So well-known is this book that in China it would be almost impossible to locate a person who has never heard of it. You will run into plenty of Chinese movies based on stories out of this book. Unfortunately the original author was prolific but highly unsuccessful during his lifetime in Qing dynasty.
Here's the gist of the movie: A lovely bookworm (宁采臣) took a nasty job as a debt collector. While seeking shelter in a deserted thousand-year old temple, he ran into whom he thought was an otherworldly beautiful girl. She was in fact, from another world: a ghost spirit in the "Yin" domain waiting to gather enough "Yang" essence by trapping and sapping healthy young males, in order to reincarnate back into physical existence. The bookworm, clueless of her scheme, foolhardily tried to rescue her out of the temple and her controlling grandma, a hermaphrodite ghost sort of, and a monster tree ghost, running a quasi female ghost brothels so that a cut of the "Yang" essence the girls sapped can be supplied to support her own transformation away from the afterworld.
If you are interested in ancient Chinese culture, I highly recommend this movie. The dialogues, choreographed actions, costume design, special effects and acting are all superior. Some even said that this movie reinvigorated the Hong Kong film industry, in a doldrum at the time, with a newly charged form of period drama.
This movie, made nearly 30 years ago, remains a classic.
The male lead was played by the one-and-only Leslie Cheung (张国荣). Cheung, before his untimely 2003 death due to severe depression, had achieved almost every highest honor in every possible field an Asian entertainer could've attempted. I will introduce more of his films in the near future. 

Chinese subtitles. Enjoy the movie.

American Dreams in China; 中国合伙人

A more literal translation would be "Chinese Partners".
I see this movie as a tribute to those dare to dream.
An elitist whose father and grandfather had both been educated in the states, a country bumpkin with horrifying accents and a poetic long-haired hippie: three friends met as freshmen in the fictional Yanjing University in what seems to be the immediate post-cultural revolution Beijing in the late 1970s to early 1980s.
At the time there was such a thirst for knowledge as the decade-long cultural revolution had closed the door of higher learning to practically everyone except a few proletariat with approved background.
I have heard moving tales of how people formed long snake lines outside of libraries for hours before the crack of dawn just to secure seats to study all day. Today, I think it's not an exaggeration to say the few things that can still command such display of enthusiasm are iPhones and concert tickets (not the classical music kind mind you).
Like most students from top universities, the three friends dived into their dogged pursuit of the Chinese brand of the American dream: to score high on standardized admission tests such as the TOEFL, GRE and GMAT and through the studying process to be as linguistically and culturally prepared as possible. The goal was to go to America for graduate studies. Undergraduate and direct prep school admissions for non-immigrant Chinese students didn't become more of the norm till the 21st century.
Getting a student visa was brutally difficult for Chinese students back then even though all of the applicants went into the U.S. consulate offices had already been accepted and some even with guaranteed academic scholarships. And for those lucky few granted visas, many didn't flourish as their later counterparts would. 1980's just wasn't the time for Chinese yet!
This is exactly what happened to the elitist. He fed lab rats at Columbia University while telling friends he was conducting research; his piano-playing girlfriend worked in a laundromat while telling others she was tutoring piano in Long Island.
Meanwhile back in Beijing, two remaining friends started a small enterprise, borderline illegal at the time, to teach English, for commercial profit, to U.S.-bound students how to score high on standardized tests. Demand for test preparation was so high that one makeshift classroom quickly mushroomed into auditorium-sized lectures. Elitist abandoned his own dream of "making it" in America to join force and help thousands of Chinese students realize their own. The three friends would eventually take their company a NASDAQ-listed public one.
Heavily based on the true story behind the formation and rise to fame of New Oriental, the US-listed Chinese educational service giant with the appropriate ticker EDU, this movie is an homage to all of the post-Cultural revolution, Deng Xiaoping-era first generation of daring Chinese business leaders such as Sohu's Charles Zhang, Vanke's Wang Shi, Alibaba's Jack Ma and of course, New Orient's Michael Yu.
Three of the China's currently most bankable actors star as the three friends: Huang Xiaoming (黄晓明), Deng Chao (邓超), Tong Dawei (佟大为). 

Chinese subtitles with lots of English dialogues. Enjoy the movie.

Growing up; 小毕的故事

You will never truly understand post-war contemporary Taiwan till you have watched this movie.
Towards the end of 1940s, the nationalists started to retreat to Taiwan. An overwhelming 1.5-2 million population made of mostly military personnel and their families landed there, expanding the island's total population by one quarter.
The solution for immediate accommodation was to throw all rank-and-file into blocks and blocks of tiny and connected residences sharing maze-like walkways, cooking fumes, noise from disciplining children and in many cases, even bathrooms.
These residential quarters are called 眷村 (Juancun). There were close to 700 of them in its heydays. Although literally means villages made of relatives a few degrees removed, 眷村 are really made of related non-relatives or unrelated relatives. Residents were only related in a sense that all the fathers served in the army together and were relatives because every few doors down the alley, there might be another family sharing the same ancestral roots. For Chinese, roots are traced back thousands of years and ancestry is such a relative term.
The most poignant contemporary Taiwanese subculture was born!
眷村文化 (Juancun culture) is a pastiche of Chinese regional and provincial cultures, dialects, cuisine, Peking opera, homesickness, customs and conventions frozen circa 1949. Part military base, part immigrant ghetto, part melting pot and part crucibles, Juancun culture originated as nostalgia out of denial but evolved into cohesion and resolve out of choice. So many of today's prominent figures in Taiwan came out of Juancun that its influence is still gathering momentum.
The story of Growing Up talks about a boy's experience in Juancun. As a child born out of wedlock, he moved there with his mom after she married a much older man with a reliable government job and a promise of giving the boy a good education. The stepfather proved to be kind and decent. However, the little boy only grew increasingly morose, insecure, recalcitrant and hostile by the year as if to personify the aggregate frustration of all Juancun dwellers. Facing mounting desperation, the mom kills herself as a quiet wake-up call for her son.
The movie was based on a novel of the same name. Zhu Tianwen (朱天文), its author adapted it into the screenplay. The actor playing the adolescent boy, Niu Chengze (钮承泽) has grown up to be a reputable Taiwanese director whose work I will introduce more very soon.

Chinese subtitles. Enjoy the movie.

Perhaps Love; 如果•爱

Perhaps Love was lauded as the first major original musical movie in modern Chinese cinema. If you happen to like musicals with a Faberge egg-like love triangle plot to match, you will indeed find this film spectacular.
Bearing some semblance to Moulin Rouge!, Perhaps Love is nevertheless very Chinese. Some of today's Chinese vernacular become indelible thanks to the characters. 文青, (short for 文艺青年), is a collective term for artsy youth. Cultured, petit bourgeois, slightly disenfranchised, they are ardently interested in careers in the entertainment and creative writing industries. 北漂 (bei piao, literally a northbound floater) is a 文青, typically from either humbler background or smaller towns, bravely uproots him or herself to migrate to Beijing (北京) chasing the dream. Incidentally, there's also 横漂(heng piao), a person practically on standby 24/7 for auditions, gigs as extras at China's own Hollywood 横店, an entire Eastern town, 2.5 hour train ride from Shanghai, made of clusters of filming bases with permanent thematic sets.
Our characters are the essence of the current generation of artsy youth who strives for a life less ordinary, less programmed than what their parents had lived in the pre-capitalistic China. Through the dreams of these floating artsy youth, modern Chinese consumerism is finally emerging.
I'm not a fan of musicals but have always been a fan of works by director Peter Chan (陈可辛, Chen Kexin in pinyin).
Chan attended college in the states. But after taking his first summer job in Hong Kong as director John Woo (吴宇森) 's translator and key grip in the early 80s, he dropped out. The rest is history.
Chan has the observation and patience of an anthropologist. One of his early works Comrades: Almost in Love, made in 1996, is a classic depicting the 97 HK syndrome, is a film to which I will dedicate a separate post one day.
The cast is made of three well-respected actors with singing background. One of them, Jacky Cheung (张学友), with a stature in HK's Canton Pop so significant that in Asia, his clout and fame easily rivals that of U2's Bono. The impossibly handsome Takeshi Kaneshiro (金城武) and the very talented Zhou Xun (周迅) also star.

Chinese subtitles. Enjoy the movie.